Sick of Winter
by YogaForever
Summary: Heaven forbid you end up alone. *Older Sonic and Tails*


"Heaven forbid you end up alone.

...I don't know how to get to you."

-The Fray, _Heaven Forbid _

**Sick of Winter **

By

_Nana_

As far back as I can remember, I've always hated Winter. It's cold. It's gray. It's like the whole world has given up on daytime and sunshine and has receded into the safety of dreary winds and a cold blanket of dirty snow.

Winter makes me sick.

All it does is remind me of everything that's wrong with the world. Suddenly, because of Winter, everyone gets all sentimental and puts on a pair of rose-colored glasses and say 'to hell with war and cruelty - Let's be good to each other!' It takes a fucking blizzard to wake these people up to everyone around them. They feel guilty. That's it. That's all it is. They ease the guilt they have for being able to buy their spoiled kids presents by donating toys to charity drives. They feed into their Good Will to Mankind mind set by giving up food and time in soup kitchens.

I'd like to meet the men and children who feel generous once a year and look them in the eye and tell them they're just trying to feel good about themselves. They want a clear conscience before they down eggnog and set up the Christmas tree. Well, I'd like to look them in the eye and tell them the streets are cold year-round and kids go hungry every night during the Summer. I'd like to tell them that toys are awfully thoughtful, but a home would be better. Hell. Shoes would be decent.

Maybe I'm being preachy. I don't care. It wouldn't hurt to be generous all the time, is all I'm saying.

Winter reminds of the one person who looked at me -the freak, the abandoned little kid, the nerd, the loser- and smiled. His warm, sweet smile. Anyway, Winter reminds me of him these days. This person who was my first friend. This person who wouldn't leave me like all the others did. He showed me I could be loved simply and purely because I was there. Maybe it's because he found me just before another Winter? Maybe it's because he doesn't come to Christmas parties anymore...

He hates Winter, too. It's when Rouge throws her party and even Shadow loosens up and he can't accept it anymore. It reminds him of all the things he's fucked up. He's done so much good, for everyone, and all he sees anymore are his flaws. Frankly, he's changed so much that it's hard to love him anymore. But I still do. I just wonder - How can someone as arrogant as him be so insecure? It kills me.

People smile and wave at me, but I ignore them. I don't accept Winter friendliness. The nice thing about the extra ounce of good intentions in everyone's coffee is that no one points at my double tails openly. Not even the kids - who are usually too young to know the difference between curiosity and cruelty.

Everyone gives the Salvation Army bell-ringer their extra change, but I just walk right past him and into the bakery. Despite his Santa suit, the bell-ringer's skin is tinted purplish blue from the harsh wind today. In the bakery, it's warm and dry and I buy a bag of his favorite pastries and two cups of hot chocolate. On my way out, the bell-ringer seemed to appreciate the warm drink and the spare change.

Honestly, I don't even know why I care.

* * *

_Buzzzzzz._

Five minutes after I press the door-buzzer, his voice comes through the crackling little intercom.

"Who's there?" His voice is a little rough. Perhaps from lack of use, or maybe from three packs of cigarettes a day.

"It's me." I say, feeling small all of a sudden. I get tense around him these days. He just isn't himself. "Um. Tails?"

He'd forgotten to take his finger off the speak button and I hear him sigh. Then he says: "Hey, Tails. What's up? You here to bother me again?"

"It's really fucking cold out here. In case you're curious." I inform him.

"Yeah." He sighs again before saying: "Come in then."

And then the door's unlocked and make my way up. The sign outside said the building rents room by the week - meaning he won't be around much longer.

_Knock. Knock. Kno-_

The door swings open with my hand in the air. I laugh nervously at that, then see his miserable expression (carefully disguised as emotionless). He looks like hell. Obviously hasn't slept in days.

I steel myself for the ensuing argument. I can sense he's in a mood. "I suspect you didn't do anything for Christmas?"

"What the fuck do you care, Tails? I never do anything for Christmas." He walks away, and I take the liberty of stepping inside and shutting the door. The neighbors don't have to know about his constant bad mood and how badly I'm willing to treat him to get him to stop being such an ass.

"Sonic." I start. "I am still your best friend, aren't I? 'And 'cause I'm your friend, that gives me permission to care about you.' Know who said that?"

"Fucking lunatic?" He falls backward onto his bed, head hitting the thin pillow hard. The box spring screeches.

"You." I roll my eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic. I'm your friend, alright? I care."

"Your funeral."

Slowly, I shake my head at him with condescension. He's acting like an overgrown child again. "Not everybody who cares about you will die."

"You know, why would you being something like that up?"

"Because it's a major character flaw. It's a hang-up. God, Sonic. It's obvious. Everybody knows why you refuse to let anyone in. Everybody knows why you-,"

"Because-,"

"-you don't want anyone to get hurt for following you. You don't want Robotnik to kill your friends like he did to Cream. You don't want any of your friends going insane with their own misery - eventually killing themselves. Yeah. Sure, okay, Sonic. But the real reason is that you're just plain afraid of losing us, isn't it?"

We stare each other down. Him laying in bed, opening his cigarette box and me standing over him. He looks stubborn but I'm sure I just look cold. His eyes narrow.

"Do you want me to hurt you or something? Is that it?" He asks and lights up.

"Masochism has never been to my tastes. I find it un-fulfilling and immensely displeasing." I crinkly my nose at the plume of smoke rising away from him.

"Stop speaking so pretentiously." He rolls his eyes and directs his sight to the wall at his side. He can never make eye-contact when he's emotional.

"You bring this on yourself, you know." I inform him and turn to sit down. He looks at me when I sit. "All this misery."

"That's what you keep telling me." He smirks at me without humor and then takes another, deeper, drag. He's staring me down - challengingly. I can't handle the sincere look of disgust he's wearing and look away. I put my face in my hands. Rub my eyelids in irritation.

Muffled by my hands, I ask, "How many times do I have to tell you it wasn't your fault?"

"Vanilla hates me for it, though." He argues. His voice is trembling. But most wouldn't even notice that flicker of emotion. They'd write it off as whispering. But I know better. I know he lowers his voice to cover the tremble when he wants to cry. He always wants to cry, just a little bit, but he represses himself. Thinks he doesn't deserve to cry or thinks it's a sign of weakness. Such a chest-banging drama queen.

"She's in mourning. She'll blame anyone and everyone for her daughter dying. It's a natural response."

"Come on," he says and I peek at him through the side of my eye. "Didn't you see the way she looked at me at the funeral? She hates me."

"How do you know that?"

"She told me. 'I hate you. If it hadn't been for you bringing her with you on all those damn adventures, my daughter would still be in my arms. This is all your fault. And I despise you. Go to hell.' Fucking bitch."

"Sonic, I was there."

In the strained silence, he swallows and the stench of smoke makes me wanna choke.

"People still love you, though. Even if Vanilla isn't ready to realize it's her fault for letting Cream leave with us. Even if Vanilla isn't ready to admit Cream came with us of her own free will." I watch my hands on my lap as I say it.

"What about you? Didn't you and Cream - I don't know, love each other?"

First I gave Sonic a strange look. He was looking at the wall and smoking, but just the same, he'd really said that. I had to laugh. I couldn't help but laugh. He eyed me.

"What?" He asked.

"It's just that-It's just..." I laugh again before I can say anything. I lean back on my hands and look at him. "It's just the thought of loving Cream romantically. I could never do that."

"Oh really?" He quirks his eyebrow at me.

So I nod. "Really. She was like a sister to me."

"You weren't a brother to her." He rose his eyebrows knowingly and looked at his friend, the wall, again.

Discomfort knots my stomach and I frown. Thinking about the way Cream looked at me -with strong, admiring love- just makes my head hurt. Her feelings were never mutual between us. And I regret never having told her that. But I'm also relieved she died in blissful ignorance of my non-romantic love for her. "You know, Sonic?" I break the silence we'd fallen into, while staring at my shoes like my speech was written there. "You're a hard person to love."

"I'm pretty sure no one loves me at this point." Was all he had to say.

"Quit it. You need to stop talking like that."

"I'll talk anyway I damn please."

"Yeah, I know." I mumble. His cigarette smoke makes my eyes tear. So I tell myself. "Do you like this isolation?"

"Fucking hate it."

"So, then, why do you do it to yourself?"

There's a beat of silence and he takes a heavy drag.

"'Cause I hate myself more, I guess." There's another beat of silence, then his voice carries over as airy as the smoke: "Are you crying?" Accusation enters his tone, "You're fucking crying. Jesus, Tails. Why do you gotta be such a woman about things? Stop crying."

I want to tell him to go to hell, but he's Sonic. And I'm just his kid brother. I'm just his newspaper-dubbed sidekick. So I swipe at my face and close my eyes to ignore him shaking his head at me. But when I open my eyes, I see that he's giving me a disdainful stare. It reminds me of how I wanted to stand up to him and tell him just how much of a loser he's being. That look -like I'm below him or something- is why it's so hard to be his friend.

"Why do you have to be like that?" I snap. Angry. "Why can't you just let us be your friends? Why can't you stand to be loved? Is it really because Amy killed herself?"

"Shut the fuck up, kid." He sits up and glares at me. He looks like he wants to slap me. But that would mean putting down the cigarette.

"Why?" I challenge him. I stand up. Over him. "Did you love her?"

"Of course I loved her." Sonic grinds out, putting the butt of his cigarette out in the mattress.

"You should've told her that when you had the chance, you moron!" I scream at him. I'm just so fed up with him!

"Seriously." Sonic gets up. For a second, I realize I'm taller than him by an inch or two. It feels good. Like I've won something. But his words take me down from my high horse. "Why do you even care? How many things do I have to do to you before you just leave me alone, man? You're working for GUN - and you're making a fortune off them and I heard some machine you made prevented a Robotnik attack. Tails, you could be the hero all the people in this stupid little world want and need. You have a hundred women hanging all over you and some guy came up to me last week, asking if I had your number. He was interested in doing a biography on you."

The reason his words infuriate me is that I can tell what he means between what he says.

"What?" I say. I step back from him. "So, are you saying that just because my life is going so great - I should stop caring about you?"

"I'm saying you're the only idiot who still cares about me and because you're life is going so great, I'm just wondering why you do." Sonic shrugs at me. He turns to where he left his cigarettes on the night-stand. But I reach and clench his wrist. He turns back to me. "What is it?"

All I can do is look at him. My throat feels thick and I can't believe he doesn't know how much he means to me.

"Sonic..."_ you're the one who taught me how to love when I hated the world for hating me. You're the one I want to help - if only to repay you for helping me. And I love you more than anyone else and it drives me crazy that you tear yourself up over a girl five years dead and I know it would never work. You're just so much older than me, but I can't help..._ "-You really shouldn't smoke."

For a second, because of the weird suspicion in his eyes, I think Sonic has read my mind. But instead he turns where my hand would lead him. He stands in front of me and crosses his arms to keep his nicotine-addicted fingers from twitching. "Okay," he finally says. "You're right. I shouldn't. Bad habit."

Right then I have no idea what's left to say.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you about Amy." I mumble, surprising myself for coming up with it. Apologizing never crossed my mind. "It's just," I continue, unsure and finding the floor an interesting thing to stare at. "I don't know."

"Man, whatever happened to no regrets?"

"Huh?" I looked up at him after blurting the most unpretentious word in my vocabulary.

"Do you remember that stupid thing I used to say?" Sonic quirks his eyebrow at me again. He plays with his lip ring - left over from a dare Amy imposed before she died. Sometimes I wonder why he leaves it in. "I've got no regrets, I just keep moving forward."

"Now I remember." I say because I do remember now. "So what happened, do you think?"

"Guess I gave up on ..." He swallows.

"On?"

Sonic shrugs.

"I hate you."

Sonic blinks and looks up at me. He's in shock. But so am I. I didn't think it would just come out like that. But it did and it's said and I don't know what to do about it. I keep thinking I didn't mean it.

Except I did.

"Tails?" Sonic says hoarsely.

"I do." I say after a moment. "I really, really think I might hate you, Sonic. You're not who you used to be. You're not the person - Why can't you get over all this shit? Why can't you move forward anymore? Everyone else has moved on. So, why do _you _keep blaming yourself?"

"Because I'm not- I just can't - Tails, you don't mean that, do you?" Sonic looks at me so intensely. And the open hurt and desperation in his eyes reminds me of how honest he used to be with me. My stomach tightens. I really thought he'd hit me for that tangent I went into. I thought he'd be pissed.

I didn't think he'd just stand there - looking so damn weak and defenseless.

"You mean it." Sonic says before I can do or say a thing. He diverts his eyes. They glimmer in the cold gray-blue light of a Winter sunset on an overcast day. When Sonic turns away to return to the safety of his nicotine and repressed tears, I can't stand to look at him anymore. Instead I stare out of the window, wanting to see the sunlight poking through the hurt storm clouds. But all that greets my view is the neighboring building's brick wall.

In the silence, I sigh and the lighter whispers to Sonic that it is his only friend. Smoke stains the air and hurts my throat.

"But I still care about you. About you wasting yourself like this."

Sonic looks at me. He looks puzzled. The injury my words caused is gone, hidden beneath the bandage of an emotionless gaze. "Excuse me?" Drag. Exhale. Smoke rises.

"I don't know." I laugh at the ludicrous love-hate relationship Sonic doesn't know exists. "It's just weird, alright? I really, truly care about you - I want to help you. But -at the same time- I want nothing to do with you. I'm just so tired of you, Sonic. So tired of this hopelessness. I want you to be how you used to be, and I know that isn't fair, but that's what I want. And I feel like you never give me what I _want_. So I hate you for it. I just can't help but care, though." I laugh again.

His eyes narrow, and the hand he has wrapped around himself tightens. He wants to hit me. But he refuses. Represses himself. Drag. Exhale. Smoke rises - jittery.

"Get that fucking smile off your fucking face." Sonic growls and inhales his precious smoke ever deeper.

As if to mock him, I pull my face into a completely solemn expression. "That better?" I know how he hates it when people use his own sarcasm against him. He clenches his teeth - I see his jaw tighten. But he opens his mouth. Drag. Exhale... Smoke.

"Just get out of my - Get out of here." He says, his voice tight, his eyes dark.

"As you wish." I turn away from him. "I'll be here next week."

"And what if I'm gone?" He challenges. But I'm turned towards the door and his dark glare is lost on me.

"You won't be. Robotnik is still in the area."

"So what if I decide you can handle him?"

"Merry Christmas, Sonic." I open the front door. Stare into the hallway. I listen to him behind me. The way his lips caress the cigarette, and his inhale takes its love in. Drag. Hold. "Rouge had a party at her club - Said you were invited. She was disappointed you didn't come." Exhale. Smoke I don't see probably rises.

"Happy New Year." He responds.

And I'm out the door and down the hall. The door slams violently behind me.

Sonic never could control his temper.

I wonder if he'll even eat the pastries I left on his night-stand when I came in. He looked too thin.

Maybe he's just waiting to die. I wonder about that as I step into the outside world again. People smile and wave at me. I ignore them. The Salvation Army bell-ringers keep at it, cheerful and frozen and shivering in place.

I dig around for spare change but my pockets are empty.

But I care. No matter how much I hate this time of year - I'll always care.


End file.
